Confusion Over Gallegly Persists Local Support May Crumble By David M. Drucker Roll Call Staff March 15, 2006 With Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) expected to announce that he will run for re-election, it was unclear… Read More

For those who are curious, on the Assembly side, I got some intel on how GOPers voted:

On the $19.5 Billion Education Bond: Passed 62 – 14 (54 needed to pass). The 14 "no" votes were all Republicans. They were: Bogh, Cogdill, DeVore, Harmon, Haynes, La Malfa, LaSuer, Maze, Mountjoy, Nakanishi, Spitzer, Strickland, Tran, Walters. There was one Republican who was present and did not vote: Mike Villines, who I am told simply felt he did not have enough information on how the bill would impact his district to cast a vote. Any GOPers not mentioned above voted "aye" on this bond.

For the $4.15 Levee Bond: Passed 67-4 (54 needed to pass). The 4 "no" votes were all Republicans. They were: Harman, Haynes, Mountjoy, Strickland. There were two Republicans who were present and did not vote: LaSuer and Maze. Any GOPers not mentioned above voted "aye" on this bond. I spoke with Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (my legislator) who told me that for him, a key point in gaining his support for the levee bond was that it provided for the ability, via a… Read More

This edition of The Atlantic Monthly has an interesting article on Speaker Gingrich, who they point out correctly was always more of a futurist than a conservative. I’m not going to reprint it here, and I’m afraid many Republicans will be loath to actually walk down to the newstand and purchase this kind of magazine. See, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Harpers are sort of “pornography” in the Republican activist community – material you wouldn’t want anyone seeing you purchse. I get my copies in a brown paper bag, sent to a PO box under the psuedoname Smitty Von Trap. The article also points the reader over to the Speaker’s website www.newt.org, which is worth taking a gander at.

I’ve always sort of viewed Gingrich and Delay – who were not exactly kiss on the mouth friends – as two necessary componants of our party… sort of a Janus type deal with two opposite heads. I viewed Gingrich as the idealist, the ‘big idea’ man who kept the Revolution from stagnancy… who kept our ideas fresh and forward thinking even if sometimes he sounded like your uncle the inventor after a couple of pops… Read More

The last-minute frenzy surrounding the infrastructure bond negotiations looks depressingly familar to anyone who’s ever watched the state legislature flounder its way to the deadline for passing a state budget every year. Months of posturing, preening, and procrasination, followed by a panicked rush in the last hours to fulfill their actual responsibility and negotiating out an agreement. Endless pledges to stand on principle no matter what, before finally compromising or letting others do it on their behalf.

Yawn.

Like a college student pulling all-nighters before his finals, these people are congenitally incapable of getting their work done before their backs are up against the wall. Instead of spending the semester hanging out at beer bashes and fraternity parties, though, legislators instead spend their spring term holding hearings in which they ignore witnesses, talk past each other, and generally behave as if they would have an allergic reaction to any type of productive negotiation and compromise.

Such is life in a state capitol dominated by special interests. Before actually engaging in reasonable discussion, there is… Read More

FIRE ROB REINER The rallying cry is growing – Fire Rob Reiner! As we have written about several times on this site, Rob Reiner is an embarrassment to us all. Not only that, but his political philosophy is at the extreme left end of the Democrat Party. This is clearly not someone that we would want in any position of public trust, and now we know why. As head of the Prop. 10 Spending Commission for California, millions of taxpayer dollars were used to buy commercials supporting state-run preschool as an idea, while he was paying signature gatherers to help him qualify his initiative to tax wealthy Californians to create a state-run, centralized pre-school bureaucracy. A lot has been written on all of this. Well, State Senate Republicans have now penned a letter to the Governor, asking that Reiner be replaced (Reiner’s term has expired, and with the stroike of a pen, he is off of this influencial commission). You can do something about it, too. There is an on-line petition set up at www.firereiner.com where you,… Read More

FIRE ROB REINER The rallying cry is growing – Fire Rob Reiner! As we have written about several times on this site, Rob Reiner is an embarrassment to us all. Not only that, but his political philosophy is at the extreme left end of the Democrat Party. This is clearly not someone that we would want in any position of public trust, and now we know why. As head of the Prop. 10 Spending Commission for California, millions of taxpayer dollars were used to buy commercials supporting state-run preschool as an idea, while he was paying signature gatherers to help him qualify his initiative to tax wealthy Californians to create a state-run, centralized pre-school bureaucracy. A lot has been written on all of this. Well, State Senate Republicans have now penned a letter to the Governor, asking that Reiner be replaced (Reiner’s term has expired, and with the stroike of a pen, he is off of this influencial commission). You can do something about it, too. There is an on-line petition set up at www.firereiner.com where you,… Read More

Lee Baca has a problem. Did he break the law, by giving ID cards to campaign supporters? It sure looks that way. See here.So here is the big question. Will any of the candidates for Sheriff have the money to exploit this and his other failings? He could go down if the dollars are there. See my previous post here.… Read More

San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling on Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, to reverse a rule that prevents the church’s charity organization from placing children awaiting adoptions with same-sex couples.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: "As a gay Catholic," Ammiano said, referring to himself, "Cardinal Levada is everything that is wrong with the Catholic Church.

"If this cardinal would put the kind of energy into ending sexual abuse and homophobia in the church as he puts into persecuting same-sex couples …" Ammiano said, adding, "I think there’s a reason that the office he represents now was once called the Office of the Inquisition."

In San Francisco, everyone is a radical and no one has to… Read More